Well, the holidays have officially started with a celebratory dinner, lots of icecream with fresh pineapple and strawberries (and a very apologetic waiter as my steak was bien cuit instead of saignant, so I got a new one and now I’m stuffed as I had one and a half steak and a double portion of croquettes and I still had to finish half of youngest strawberry coupe) and a rented movie (The curious case of Benjamin Button – very good indeed!). We invited the neighbours over and had a cosy evening. Ooh – we forgot the extra tub of Ben & Jerry’s we bought at the movie renting shop! That’s for next time then 😀

And yes, youngest (the left one) went through with flying colours, no fails all Bs and Cs and an A for english of course 😉 Eldest (you guessed it, the right one :D) scraped through with an E for maths now but an overall 50%, so she can go to the next year and nope, no holiday work but a sterling promise she will try hard from day one next school year. Oh, but she did have an A for english too 🙂

So woohooh and tralaa and we’re off for 9 weeks of sleeping in and eating whenever we like 😀

The girls are growing up fast – I can’t look over their heads any more, certainly not when they’re sitting on my lap (which they still like to do :D) Sometimes they’re fighting – like all sisters do – and sometimes they are just too cute for words – like teenagers can be, still 😀 Don’t tell them I said so though 😀

This afternoon they will get their final report and I’m sitting here fingers and toes crossed they will pass – maths can be a demon so any good karma sent their way will be gratefully accepted 🙂

Too many things to do, not enough time to do them – or wasting the time I have with things I shouldn’t be doing anyway 😛 – so the advent calendar wasn’t lasting for a long time now, did it?

That’s also why I’m definitely not making any new year resolutions this year. I could be making so many – saving more, spending less, eating less, dieting, do more housework, going to bed earlier, spending less time behind the pc,… naaaahh… why bother? I could make one and only one: I’m now officially a grumpy old lady as I’m over 50, so I can use that as an excuse to do whatever I like to do – yeah, that’s what I’m going to do!

There are those ladies in the US (or is the UK?) who wear red hats and purple coats (or is it purple hats and red coats?) and just do whatever they like to do. I’m going to join their ranks. I bought myself a red coat and red shoes when I was in London last week – the shoes in the sales, the coat not (and both were approved by my teenage daughters – success!) – so I’m almost there. You won’t see me wearing a hat in a hurry, I do have a black woolen ‘egg cosy’ (well, that’s what we call them in our family) and an orange one with earflaps, the peruvian style one which is again all the rage now, but I just don’t seem to have a ‘hat head’, my ears are the wrong shape and don’t like to conform to a hat brim 😉 As it is snowing today and temperatures are still dropping – they said it could get as low as minus 10 Celsius on Wednesday – maybe I should find one of them to wear later when I’m going to have a look at the sales here. Although I probably won’t be buying a lot, I filled a whole suitcase with books and dvds when we were in London, as the pound had dropped so dramatically compared tot he euro, so I’m good for a few months 😀

Well, the only thing left to say now is “Have a happy new year and that all your wishes may come true!” Just be careful what you wish for though 😉

I’ve been busy playing around, creating a new blog, one I will be sharing with a good friend, what do I say, almost family 😀

But as we both want to be sure everything is to both our liking – and as she’s in the US and I’m in Europe we have to coordinate time zones to find some overlapping – usually when she’s having breakfast, I’m already thinking about dinner, or when she’s ready to go to bed, I’m just drinking my first cup of coffee 😀

So you guys and girls will have to wait a while to see what we’ve come up with – probably somewhere beginning next year 😉

It’s the big day again. Even when my girls are already well in their teens, they still want to keep the tradition upheld (ha – of course, they’re the ones getting the presents!). But even Sinterklaas feels the pinch of the recession. So less sweets (we still have leftovers from last year, so that was a no-brainer really 😀 ) and only a few toys. Only problem is, the bigger the kid, the smaller the toy but also the more expensive :p But well, I get to play with them too, so it’s not too bad 😉

They’ve got 2 games for the Wii – Monopoly and Rayman Raving Rabbids TV party – and one for the PC, the first extension for Spore . Today they can play, tomorrow it gets locked away. They’ve got exams, so some studying needs to be done. When we had their reports for daily work, they shared a first place, they have to keep up standards after all.

I like the new ‘backstage’ look of wordpress! I really do! It’s neat and compact and gives you a nice overview and reduces frantic back-and-forth clicking of tabs etc to a major extent. A+ for the designers and crew!

What I also notice now is that my ‘About’ page gets the most clicks of all my posts (not that I have such a huge following already, teehee) but there’s hardly anything to see as I never know what to talk about when it’s about myself. Well, I did a bit of work there, so there’s a little bit to read about me. Go and have a look. Not that you will find anything that you didn’t know already, probably, but still, the page hasn’t got that empty look anymore 😀

Nic Balthazar, one of Belgium’s leading film makers, has made a clip to draw the attention to the need of having a proper law concerning emmissions in Europe. Now it’s up to us to badger the politicians until they do something about it. The site, www.thebigask.be tells you all about it (in dutch) the banner underneath leads you to the english site and here is the film itself, in english to keep it international, but you can also view it of course, in dutch and french – this is Belgium after all 😀